


Cycle 65 - Alone

by banans13



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Implied Relationships, Magcretia is all pre-Julia, Mild Gore, Other, Spoilers for Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 23:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12376755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banans13/pseuds/banans13
Summary: Lucretia's year alone during Cycle 65.You have to keep moving. That's the only truth you have to cling to these days. Just keep your head down and your feet pointing out of town. Your eyelids are heavy with exhaustion and your nerves are frayed, but you have to keep moving. Can't stay anywhere too long. They're hunting you. Always.(Written in second person)





	1. Chapter 1

You have to keep moving. That's the only truth you have to cling to these days. Just keep your head down and your feet pointing out of town. Your eyelids are heavy with exhaustion and your nerves are frayed, but you have to keep moving. Can't stay anywhere too long. They're hunting you. Always.

In the small towns you pass through you trade non-essentials from the ship when you can spare it, but often negotiations take too long or you worry your goods are too exotic, too noticeable. You scavenge where you can and steal where you have to. The mission is bigger than any temporary hurt you inflict, and you only take the necessities. Besides, they'll all be gone in a year regardless. You have long given up on capturing the Light of Creation, a lost cause without the support of your team on this hostile world where you've been stranded. And yet… every time you are forced to draw your wand or take a life, you are pained.

But you don't let it break you. You can't or it's all over. Your friends, this world, the universe, every universe - all of it would be consumed, forever. Every sacrifice you had made would have been for nothing. So you only let yourself feel the pain inside. And you steel yourself. And you keep moving.

You never travel more than a day’s walk or ride from the ship, carefully hidden while you work on repairs. You have to be around to care for Fisher. He survived the crash, luckily, and he is your only source of companionship. Sometimes you imagine Magnus’ face brightened with joy and relief at seeing Fisher safe and sound when this is all over. Sometimes it’s only this thought which keeps you sane.

You’ve managed to repair the ship by now, a slow and arduous task you’ve barely managed to scrape together from a few manuals on board and trial-and-error methodology. Every few days you move the Starblaster, silently, in the dead of night, holding your breath, praying to any god or goddess who might be listening that your patch spells don’t wear thin. _Just a little longer_ you think. _Just a little longer._

Replacement parts are hard to come by and you can’t get too many from the same town. Usually the people on this dry and withered world with anything worth having protect it fiercely, else they don’t hold on to it for long. Marauding bands of thieves and thugs roam about the gray landscape, pillaging and murdering those they consider weaker. Sometimes you are unlucky and they find you first and you are forced to fight. Other times you set out to find their camps, trading for the rarer elements needed to keep the Starblaster operational.

The men and women of these marauder camps are cruel. The upper-class citizens who live in the bubbled oases look the other way on these barbarians as long as they don’t disrupt their resource supply chains, and even hire them from time to time to track down escaped criminals or round up labor for their factories. Justice is harsh and swift here, as unforgiving as the landscape.

You are forced to disguise yourself, rarely exposing your face. You are a wanted criminal, a name and a face plastered on the bounty boards in almost every town. Your friends are likely dead. You’ve heard others talk about how they treat criminals in the cities, especially the capital. It isn’t kind. It weighs on your soul, knowing you’re the only one left. That everything rests on your shoulders.

You continue to write, chronicling every moment of struggle, every passing and mundane detail in the hopes that this will all mean something, one day. It is dispassionate and factual accounting, a succinct summary of daily events and facts gleaned about the world. The writing keeps you focused on the future. Soon, you tell yourself, this will simply be a chapter in the vast novel of your extended and fantastical lives, a strange detour. An obstacle you overcame. You try to believe that this too will pass, but sometimes you can’t help but think you are writing a eulogy.

Sometimes you sleep in their rooms, just to feel close to them. Wrapped up in Lup’s blankets, safe among Barry’s experiments, nestled in Merle’s flora, it’s easier to feel their spirits cheering you on. Over meager dinners of scavenged sustenance you try to remember the vibrancy of Taako’s meals, Davenport’s excitement over a new discovery, the timber of Magnus’ laugh. In the beginning you often cried, but these days you’re too tired. There isn’t room for tears. You’re too empty. You clean up your dishes and keep moving.


	2. Supply Run part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a supply run into town, Lucretia makes a friend and discovers a plot.

You left the Starblaster at dawn this morning, a gray cloak draped around your shoulders to protect against the violent winds, a cloth drawn across your mouth and a large brimmed hat to hide your silver hair. You need supplies. It’s been a day and a half since your last meal and the soldering torch you’ve been using to patch the final bit of hull damage ran out of gas last night. You don’t want to move the ship again until its fixed. You laid out a few drawings for Fisher to snack on, sprinkled the last of your water over Merle’s few still-living plants, then locked up the Starblaster and headed out.

Your wand is tucked into your cloak, and your hands sweat inside the too large leather gloves, hot already in the humidity of the stormy morning. Storms are common and sudden here, tearing quickly across the flat prairie land, leaving destruction in their wake.

The closest town is about half a day’s journey from the cave where you’ve been hiding. It takes you’re a while to cut through the tall grass and find a road, and once you do you immediately draw your wand and conceal your path. You drop a small blue pebble on the ground and whisper a location enchantment – your eyes peeled for witnesses – but the flat expanse around you is empty.

The journey is slow and leaves you too much time for thinking. Usually you try to keep yourself busy, don’t let yourself dwell on the hopelessness of the situation, but the world around you is quiet and your mind begins to wander to thoughts of your companions. You have imagined their deaths so many times in so many ways, horrible images of mangled corpses. You shake your head and try to think of happier times.

“Lucretia, that is one dope-ass cape,” you imagine Lup beside you, carelessly smiling and kicking up dust.

“Eh, a little plain.” Taako materializes next, studying his nails in disinterest, then glancing her way casually. “Grey is really not your color, darling. Didn’t we settle on shades of blue?”

“Aw, leave her alone, Taako,” Merle laughs. He’s working on a sudoku puzzle as you all walk, but is filling in each empty box with letters instead. “Maybe Lucretia’s trying a new style! I think you look great, it really compliments your figure.”

Now Magnus laughs from behind them.

“Merle, she is literally wearing a giant blanket. How is saying that a compliment? You’re basically implying she has the figure of a giant manta ray.” He laughs again.

Davenport and Barry catch up from behind and the captain scolds you all for rushing off ahead as Barry slides over between you and Lup, flashing you an apologetic smile as he takes her hand.

You let yourself imagine the journey with them at your side. It helps you keep your feet moving, remembering what it is you’re fighting for.

This town, Kellerville, is larger than the last few you’ve stopped in, and it gives you the chance to stop at a bar and buy a real meal. The bread is a little stale and the beans and meat they serve are at least a day old, but they have seasoning and you can order as much as you want. They over-charge you when you go to pay, but you fork over the stolen coin without protest. Better to avoid a confrontation. There will be more to steal somewhere else.

You purchase a small cart next, and begin to load it with water tanks and small crates of salted meat and dried fruits – food that will keep for a while. There are always farmers and homesteaders picking up supplies like these, so you feel safe from suspicion. The gas for the soldering torch will be the only odd item out.

You locate the gas easily enough, but you end up having to trade away one of your water tanks and almost the rest of your coin to buy it off the woman. A rough looking dwarven woman with an eyepatch and a long scar across her face eyes you as you leave, but turns back to her own purchase quickly enough that you let yourself forget her. You can always feel the eyes on the back of your neck, the vultures waiting to see how long it takes you to become their next carrion meal.

By the time you’ve gathered everything it’s late, too late to be heading back by yourself. People don’t wander around alone at night out here – too many marauders and wild animals prowling for a meal in the tall grass. So, you decide spend the last of your coin and rent a room for the night.

The desk at the inn is manned by a young human boy, hardly older than ten. He is wiry and lean with a messy head of hair, and when you enter he smiles at you, gap-toothed.

“Evenin’, sir,” he says, scrambling out of his chair and disappearing behind the tall counter. His head pops up again as he climbs on to the chair to stand. Behind your bandana you almost smile at the sight. “You looin’ for a room? We gots a lotta rooms, starts at three gold for our littlest.”

You pull down your bandana and the little boy gasps. “A lady! Sorry miss, I just ‘sumed you was a man. You’ve got very pretty dark skin. It’s even darker than mine!” He holds out his arm to show you and your mouth twitches upwards, just slightly.

“A room would be very lovely, thank you.” You place the three gold pieces on the counter and the boy runs and grabs a key from a back room, handing it to you, excitement in his eyes.

“Where you from, lady?”

“Here and there.” You shrug and take the key, the give the child a little pat on his head. He’s young and vibrant in a way you miss terribly. As you head for the door the boy shouts out a quick excuse to his mother and then begins to follow you back out into the evening. You try to ignore him as you grab your supply sledge and head towards the room on your key, but he makes it nearly impossible.

“That’s a lotta water, you a farmer?”

“What’s the metal canister for?”

“Are you a traveler?”

“How many towns have you been to?”

“What do you do for a living?”

You reach the door to your room and pull out your wand, discreetly, checking for traps or spells. The little boy peers around you and gasps lightly at the sight of your wand, faintly glowing with magical energy.

“Is you a witch?”

Your wand dims as you confirm the absence of traps and you proceed inside, dragging your supplies in after. You go to shut the door but the little boy is standing just inside, inspecting one of the food crates. You sigh. He’s a sweet kid, but you need to set up protection spells so you can get some rest before you head out at dawn.

“Listen, little boy –” you begin, but you’re cut off by a sudden ‘ah-ha!’.

The boy straightens, a small metal object between his fingers, and a big smile plastered across his face.

“Knew somethin’ was wrong on your cart! Someone put a tracker on ya, miss Lady!”

Quickly you take the object from him and examine it. Sure enough there’s a subtle enchantment on this little metal burr. You curse under our breath and pull out your wand again to disengage it. Just before you mutter the incantation, you realize you can’t just turn it off, else you let them know you’re on to them. Sighing, exasperated, you sit on the edge of you bed and rub your temples, trying to think. You remove your hat, and again you’re interrupted by a small gasp from the boy.

“Your hair!” He comes closer to you, now just below eye-level with your sitting form. He reaches up a small hand to touch a curling silver lock that had escaped your tight bun, but you grab his wrist before he gets there.

“Ouch!” he winces.  Quickly you drop his arm as he pulls his hand back, a small look of fear flashing across his face.

You soften. It’s been so long since you’ve trusted anyone on the garbage heap of a world. You muster an apologetic smile, an action so recently underused you have to actively think about it for a moment.

“Forgive me, please. What is your name?” you ask.

“Hy-Hyram,” he mutters, still clutching his arm.

“What a lovely name, Hyram. How old are you?” You stand and begin casting your nightly protection spells, walking from each corner of the room to the next, giving Hyram some distance.

“T-ten.”

You finish casting and kneel on the floor before him and offer him your wand. “I was eight when I cast my first spell. Have you ever studied magic?”

He shakes his head and looks from you to the wand over and over. You nod and his eyes widen as he eagerly snatches the slender white stick from your gloved hands. He begins to wave it around the room as you remove your travelling cloak and boots. You laugh as Hyram furrows his brow, determined to produce something from the tip of the wand, but it merely fizzes pathetically.

The sound surprises the both of you and you cover your mouth quickly, before sitting beside the boy once more. You hold out your hand and he reluctantly returns your wand.

“I’m only bad cause I never got to go to school at all,” he admits, sheepishly. “Ma and Pa need me to help run the hotel and the shop, so I don’t have time for Pa to teach me anythin’ beyond my basic numbers. ‘Sides, the Crusaders sacked the school a few years ago and no one’s ‘bout to face them to try ‘n rebuild it.”

You hold Hyram’s gaze, seriously. “Hyram, I’ll teach you some magic if you do a favor for me.”

He looks back, just a serious, and nods. “Yes, Ma’am.”

**Author's Note:**

> AN: This is the intro chapter for a longer fic focusing on Lucretia during her time alone during Cycle 65. Following chapters will be more in the moment following specific events that occurred during the cycle.


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